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Doug,

One thing interesting about physics and other sciences is that one can
figure out what's going on in some areas without having to delve into
the specialized knowledge of people in an industry, which oftentimes is
closely held.  Or at least one can figure things out _if_ one can apply
the principles correctly!  For me, it is absolutely wonderful to see
George Huxtable doing just that.  Being basically a farmer, I often
have to figure such things out on my own or with my co-workers, so I
find it a useful skill.

Regarding sextant calibration, I know of several shops in the U.S. that
will align the telescope parallel to the axes of a sextant, but none
that can give the error corrections at various angles that are
displayed on the correction certificate inside the lid.  If you know of
any, I would be delighted to hear of them.

Thanks,

Fred

On Friday, Sep 5, 2003, at 15:16 US/Eastern, Royer, Doug wrote:

> Gentlemen,I do hope nothing I wrote was taken as an attack on any one
> person
> or the sum of the people on this list.Nothing I have written was
> intended to
> do that.In my last post I only wished to state my position on the
> matter.I
> really don't wish for anyone to change.If offended by anything on list
> I
> have the option of retireing from the list and I haven't retired.I use
> the
> other list more because it more directly pertains to the merchant
> marine
> industry,shipboard and industry goings on and the kinds of navigation
> techniques or proceedures now in use in the industry.
> Mr. Fogg made one excellant point as pertaining to people just
> starting to
> study or understand CelNav.Maybe the word intimidation should be
> replaced
> here with the word overwhelmed.A case in point: one person(just
> starting
> out) who corresponds with me asked a question of the list a while back
> and
> got so many answers(almost all the answers above his understanding of
> the
> basics)he became confussed and frustrated.After working with him to
> grasp
> his basics,he seems to be progressing in his understanding because I
> see him
> post on list every so often or when we now correspond his questions are
> becomeing more advanced or technical.
> Fred,I have no idea where you live but there are a number of
> establishments
> on the west coast that repair or calibrate sextants.I know of 1 in San
> Diego, 2 in LA, 1 in SF and 2 in Seattle.
> As for the gravitational topic(or other topics)if one wnted to know
> about
> routeing,fuel consumption etc. one could easily call a shipping
> interest or
> someone in the industry and get the basic answer.It's irrelevant to
> routeing.If you wish to understand the physics of it this is the place
> to
> find out I suppose.
>
>

   

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